


time goes by and i

by serendipitee



Category: GOT7
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Flash Fic, M/M, idk what else to tell u, this is sad and weird and short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 22:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16690216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitee/pseuds/serendipitee
Summary: but you tell me every time: just keep —





	time goes by and i

**Author's Note:**

> i have......no idea what this is i think it spawned out of watching [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFRoiAngwoQ) video and also [this](https://twitter.com/holdinontojiaer/status/1063020763081519104) one
> 
> the breakup is vague on purpose because i didn't want to make myself cry
> 
> SORRY please enjoy  
> title from breathin by ariana grande

The thing that never leaves Mark is the hush, and pause, the catch between breaths.

It’s been years at this point. Since. Several years since the shuddering, warm, alive thing between them died, in the middle of the night, with no one there to witness its pathetic downfall. Neither of them were even awake. 

They were sleeping. In separate beds, for the first time in a long time. Mark had glared too long at the conspicuously empty left half of his bed and taken his fucking Xanax and laid down hoping deep in his anxious heart that something would happen, something had to happen, something he didn’t want to jinx, something that seemed so obvious and necessary and _right_ and _he_ had to to be the one to do it...and...he fell asleep. And the next morning, everything was different.

Mark doesn’t wake up in a cold sweat anymore; he doesn’t heave silent, helpless sobs into the crux of Jaebeom’s neck like he did before. He doesn’t need Jinyoung’s hand, clasped painfully tight into his, knuckles brushing against his smooth and large and nearly unfamiliar compared to the alternative.

He can deal with all of the rest of it now. Seeing his smile, his big expressive eyes. The line of Jackson’s shoulders in a suit doesn’t make his pulse explode under his skin. Watching the way he interacts with his family, and the maknaes, and the fans, seeing the way he loves endlessly and boundlessly; none of it makes him ache the way it used to, once upon a time. Even when they’re eye-to-eye, breathing together, whispering back and forth in Mandarin, sharing smiles that Mark wants to mean more than they possibly could — even then. He can deal with that.

What’s hard is —

It’s just —

Once upon a time, Mark dropped out of high school to be in a Korean boy band. He met plenty of other boys his age that were similarly misguided. And they spent all of their time working and working and working harder and harder to achieve their dreams. 

One of them spoke English. One of them, one only eight months younger than him, who looked at him like he hung the moon, and listened intently when he talked about America, and who knew what it was like to miss a faraway place, to miss homemade _bao_ , to miss his mom and his siblings. He understood him, and they helped each other, and they made each other laugh in three languages.

They find out they’re going to debut together, and that all of their hard work is paying off, and that he’ll be part of another family of brothers now. It’s hard to catch Jackson’s eye in the midst of the congratulatory screaming and hugging and crying (most of which he’s the biggest contributor to) but afterwards they find each other like magnets, gravitating, pulling, and then they’re holding each other in the middle of a hallway and Mark hears “Yi-en, Yi-en,” chanted in his ear, watery and proud.

When they pull away, Mark feels full and empty all at once. When they pull away, there's a fleeting, bashful, terrified look in his friend's eye; there’s something lurking under the tightness of his smile — hopeful. Scared. He can feel it in his own bones, rattling his teeth. There is a pause, a jagged intake of air and then stillness — here, right here — and when Mark exhales, Jackson breathes with him, breathes against him, breathes in the tiny space between them. Heart in his throat, Mark leans forward, forward, hesitates. 

Jackson looks at him, pink lips open in a surprised little o. A pause — and then, and then, and then his hand is on Mark's face, and his big pretty eyes are shining and they're kissing, kissing, kissing like neither of them need air, like it's keeping them upright.

It did, for a little while.

Now, Mark is fine. Now, Mark is alone when he goes to sleep at night. He doesn't feel like he needs someone to be his other half.

Jinyoung says: “just because you don't need it doesn't mean you aren't allowed to want it.”

Now, every now and then, he feels eyes boring into the side of his face, then flicking away from his own gaze before he can look. Now, sometimes, when he's close enough, he can hear the smallest of catches in his friend's breath, can see the littlest flex of his hand, the strain of his skin over featherlight bones and tendons.

Mark tries not to think about it. Instead, he waits, and waits, and waits until they can breathe again. The inhale —

and then, together, the exhale.


End file.
